Quotes about nothing
page 7

“But if I don’t think about love, I will be nothing.”

Source: Eleven Minutes

“I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D. C., right now.

“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Indecision

“Peace means nothing without freedom.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Kingdom of the Wicked

Peace, Freedom

“Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Beauty

“Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On Stanley Baldwin, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 322 ISBN 1586486381 Also quoted by Kay Halle in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill's Wit http://books.google.com/books?id=b0MTAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Occasionally+he+stumbled+over+the+truth+but+hastily+picked+himself+up+and+hurried+on+as+if+nothing+had+happened%22&pg=PA133#v=onepage (1966). The 1930s Variant: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Truth

“He pulls me around and kisses me. "You're Mac," he says. "And I'm Jericho. And nothing else matters. Never will. You exist in a place that is beyond all rules for me. Do you understand that?"
I do.
Jericho Barrons just told me he loves me.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Love, Understanding, Kiss

“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)

Feeling, Time, Happy

“An authentically powered person lives in love. Love is the energy of the soul. Love is what heals the personality. There is nothing that cannot be healed by love. There is nothing but love.”

Gary Zukav (1942) American writer and revivalist

Love, Soul, Personality

“Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Death, Time

“With love and patience, nothing is impossible.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Love, Patience, love

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

Love, World

“What a terrible mistake, thought Drogo, perhaps everything is like that — we think there are beings like ourselves around us and instead there is nothing but ice and stones speaking a strange language; we are on the point of greeting a friend but our arm falls inert, the smile dies away because we are completely alone.”

Dino Buzzati book The Tartar Steppe

Source: The Tartar Steppe

Smile, Thinking

“There was nothing I could say in retaliation except something that would confuse her.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon—and me, Ruby Oliver

“People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

People, Dreams, Soul

“In the beginning there was nothing. God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

God, Light

“There was a man and he had eight sons. Apart from that, he was nothing more than a comma on the page of History. It's sad, but that's all you can say about some people.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

People, Sadness, History

“Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. -Algernon”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

“Give me some more wine, because life is nothing.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Life, Wine

“Let nothing dim the light that shines from within”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Variant: Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

Light, For women

“A man's allowed to make lots of small mistakes, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if the mistakes are big ones and they weigh him down, his only solution is to stop taking himself seriously. It's the only way to avoid suffering - suffering, prolonged, can be fatal.”

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez (1950) Cuban writer

Source: Dirty Havana Trilogy

Way, Suffering

“But, here was a curious thing. The more I tried to give up thinking of her, the more I said to myself, 'She's nothing to you', the harder I tried to pluck the idea of her out of my heart, the more she stayed there.”

Sarah Waters book Fingersmith

Source: Fingersmith

Idea, Thinking, Heart

“Is it the sea you hear in me?
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Love, Lie, Cry, Sea

“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Hell

“Having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Knowledge, Decision, Indecision

“All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. A day will come when science will turn upon its error and no longer hesitate to shorten our woes. A day will come when it will dare and act with certainty; when life, grown wiser, will depart silently at its hour, knowing that it has reached its term.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Our Eternity, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Death, Pain, Error

“When I was your age I knew nothing about the world or my place in it. I figured I'd be someone's wife, then someone's mother. It never occurred to me to be someone myself.”

Wendy Mass book Every Soul a Star

Source: Every Soul a Star

Age, World

“She… can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Reality is harsh. It can be cruel and ugly. Yet no matter how much we grieve over our environment and circumstances nothing will change. What is important is not to be defeated, to forge ahead bravely. If we do this, a path will open before us.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Reality, Change

“I laugh maniacally, then take a deep breath and touch my chest- expecting a heart to be thumping quickly, impatiently, but there's nothing there, not even a beat.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Heart

“But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes.”

Deborah Moggach (1948) English writer

Fear, Change, Future, Personality

“Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Richter II p. 126 no. 837 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=A7dUhbBfmzMC&pg=PA126 The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Beauty, Nature

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“There is nothing wrong with crying. Your feelings tell you who are. They tell what is important. Don't ever be ashamed of them.”

Terry Brooks book Armageddon's Children

Source: Armageddon's Children

Feeling, Cry

“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

William Faulkner book If I Forget Thee

Source: The Wild Palms

Pain, Wise

“But then science is nothing but a series of questions that lead to more questions.”

Terry Pratchett The Long Earth

Source: The Long Earth

Question, Science

“There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Understanding

“The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

People

“Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

Life

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Pain, Reality, Time

“Today I know this: when it comes time to take stock, the most painful wound is that of broken friendships; and there is nothing more foolish than to sacrifice a friendship to politics.”

Milan Kundera book Encounter

Source: Encounter

Pain, Friendship, Time

“Before Elvis there was nothing.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

As quoted in "Elvis Is Everywhere" in The New York Times (16 August 2007) http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/elvis-is-everywhere/ Disputed

“Keep things at arm's length… If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.”

Erich Maria Remarque book Three Comrades

Source: Three Comrades

“The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Love, Hate, Knowledge

“You and I come custom-equipped in much the same way. They don't call babies bundles of joy for nothing.”

Nick Carter (1980) singer from the United States

Source: Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It

Way, Joy, Baby

“I know nothing and my heart aches”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Heart

“In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Learning

“Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Source: Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Time, Hurt

“In nature nothing exists alone.”

Rachel Carson book Silent Spring

Source: Silent Spring

Nature

“There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

“It occurred to me that I was unhappy. And it didn’t feel so very terrible. No urgency, nothing. I could slip out of my life on a slow wave like this—it didn’t matter. I don’t have to be happy. All I have to do is hold on to something and wait.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

Life, Happiness, Feeling, Waiting

“Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

Life, Way, Personality, Motivational

“Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

Life, Books, Way, Idea

“Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Variant: Nothing will surprise us more than when we get to heaven and see the Father and realize how well we know Him and how familiar His face is to us.

“Nothing is hidden that will not be made known; nothing is secret that will not come to light.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Secret, Light

“Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: The Personal Notebooks Of Thomas Hardy

“You know how you finish a bag of chips and you hate yourself? You know you’ve done nothing good for yourself. That’s the same feeling, and you know it is, after some digital binge. You feel wasted and hollow and diminished.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Source: The Circle

Hate, Feeling

“Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Part 1, Chapter 23.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

Life, History, Reading

“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)

Art

“There's nothing militant about Jesus. I don't read anything like that in any of the gospels. Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant's ear, and Jesus said, "Put back thy sword, Peter." But Peter has had his sword out and at work ever since.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Reading

“America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

America (1956)

“Today will still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

Knowledge, Universe

“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Thinking, Time, Night

“Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

People

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

V.S. Naipaul A Bend in the River

Source: A Bend in the River

Men, World

“Evil prevails when good people do nothing.”

Erin Gruwell book The Freedom Writers Diary

Source: The Freedom Writers Diary

People, Evil

“Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Lecture IX
Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851)

Waiting

“The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that by seeing nothing it might avoid Truth.”

Radclyffe Hall book The Well of Loneliness

Source: The Well of Loneliness

Truth, World

“Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life

“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The Chronicle of Young Satan" (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished), published posthumously in Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson ( pp. 165–166 http://books.google.com/books?id=LDvA2xcYZKcC&pg=PA165 in the 2005 paperback printing, ). Source: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Curious Tales Context: Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.

Laughter

“Nothing is mysterious, no human relation. Except love.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

Love

“I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretended it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up. I had nothing to look forward to.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Night

“What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Thoreau Journal 9

Cats

“The key is never, never work. Nothing is more aging than work. It's not only the strain of getting up in the morning for work, but it's the resentment that settles on your face”

Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) writer, Actor

Age

“The polite thing would be to go back inside, give you privacy when you read it. But, I’m just not that mature.'
'It’s nothing. Fine.' Feeling foolish, Laurel opened the envelope.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Savor the Moment

Feeling, Reading

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform (1860)

People, World

“Only Evil and Greater Evil exist and beyond them, in the shadows, lurks True Evil. True Evil, Geralt, is something you can barely imagine, even if you believe nothing can still surprise you. And sometimes True Evil seizes you by the throat and demands that you choose between it and another, slightly lesser, Evil.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

Source: The Last Wish

Imagination, Evil

“Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Source: The Papers Of George Washington
Context: Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

Feeling, Passion